cabinet

noun

Etymology: From cabin + -et, influenced by French cabinet. In sense of “a government group”, compare salon, also named for a room used to gather.

1. A storage closet either separate from, or built into, a wall.
2. A cupboard.

   “‘[…] There's every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that's unique. The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn't that very rare second version of Maria Marten's Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning—he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way—’”

3. A museum display case.

   “Here I obtained the rare and beautiful swallow-tail butterflies, Papilio aenomaus and P. liris; the males of which are quite unlike each other, and belong in fact to distinct sections of the genus, while the females are so much alike that they are undistinguishable on the wing, and to an uneducated eye equally so in the cabinet.”

4. A source of valuable things; a storehouse.

   “It is a perfect cabinet of faithful, valuable, and extensive information; and it ought to have a place on the shelves of the most select and compact library, and be in the possession of every private family, as a work both of valuable reference.”

5. The upright assembly that houses a coin-operated arcade game, a cab.
6. A size of photograph, specifically one measuring 3⅞" by 5½".

   “Holmes took a note of it. “One other question,” said he. “Was the photograph a cabinet?””

7. A group of advisors to a government or business entity.
8. In parliamentary and some other systems of government, the group of ministers responsible for creating government policy and for overseeing the departments comprising the executive branch.

   “Lincoln had a great deal of trouble with his Cabinet because some of them got it into their heads that they, and not the President, were the policy-makers. James K. Polk had the same difficulty with his Cabinet. Franklin Roosevelt never had any difficulty with his Cabinet for the simple reason that he himself, in my opinion, spent too much time doing the work that should have been delegated to the Cabinet.”

9. In parliamentary and some other systems of government, the group of ministers responsible for creating government policy and for overseeing the departments comprising the executive branch.

   “The executive branch of Kentucky state government is structured on a program cabinet system consisting of 14 program cabinets, each headed by a secretary, who is appointed by the Governor. The program cabinets listed below and the agencies within each cabinet are designated in the statutes.”

10. A small chamber or private room.

    “Philip passed some hours every day in his father's cabinet.”

11. A collection of art or ethnographic objects.
12. Milkshake.

    “One of Rhode Island's most famous beverages is the Awful Awful, an enormous 32-ounce, rich, creamy milk shake sold at the Newport Creamery stores, a soda fountain and casual restaurant chain. This ultra-thick cabinet is "awful big and awful good," thus the name.”

13. A hut; a cottage; a small house.

    “Hearken a while from thy green cabinet, / The rural song of careful Colinet.”

14. An enclosure for mechanical or electrical equipment.